Running on Full

How to keep from going when you're on the go

It works for Bergland, who in addition to his newly attained record, has numerous marathon and three Triple Ironman victories under his belt. He stresses the importance of having a strategy for those times when one’s bladder insists on being heard.

"I think everyone should come up with some mental cue that tells their body that it’s okay to go now," he says. "Especially if you’re going in your pants, which [you’re] so encoded not to do." Fortunately, there are alternatives, including preventative measures that can be taken just before and in the days leading up to a race.

According to William A. Scott, M.D., co-author of Running Within: A Guide to Mastering the Body-Mind-Spirit Connection for Ultimate Training and Racing, pre-hydration is key. By hydrating regularly, and increasing intake in the days before a race, Scott posits that some runners can skimp a bit during the event.

"In elite marathon runners who get a little bit dehydrated during a marathon, it doesn’t seem to impair their performance," Scott says. "Probably the elite marathon runners will dehydrate, because they can get by with it, and it’s only a two-hour race."

But he stresses the high degree of specificity here; obviously the vast majority of runners fall outside the "elite" classification.

Scott, a competitive runner who specializes in sports medicine at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Santa Clara, CA, claims that with conscientious monitoring, athletes can determine their particular fluid requirements for racing. "It requires you to weigh yourself four times a day for a couple of months, so that you can really see how water and sugar move in and out of your body."

He estimates that during high-intensity exercise, the average athlete needs to ingest between 750 and 1500 milliliters of fluid per hour. That’s a broad range, and all the more reason to look at intake on an individual level. By isolating specific fluid/fuel needs, the hope is that excess consumption can be avoided, says Scott.

"Basically, if you’re in a racing situation, you want to fine-tune it as best you can, and probably the best thing to do is not have to go to the bathroom during a four- to six-hour race. I think with anything over six hours you’re going to have to stop and pee. But at four hours—and a lot of people do a marathon in four hours—you should be able to do the whole thing without having to stop. But we tell everybody to drink so much these days that people are stopping."